Bayern Munich deserve to be taking the trophy 'home' after lighting up Wembley in Champions League final

Shortly before 3pm at London City Airport on Sunday afternoon, Bayern Munich
transmitted a message to the world: “Boarding completed. The cup is coming
home.’’ Bayern Munich: never knowingly understated.

Home? Bayern’s fifth European Cup completed with a 2-1 win over Borussia Dortmund takes them level with Liverpool and still two behind AC Milan and four adrift of Real Madrid.

A club often associated with arrogance, whose players wore T-shirts adorned with words translated as “we are who we are: champions”, demonstrated another element to their DNA when they landed in Munich.

The first player off the plane was the captain Philipp Lahm followed by Bastian Schweinsteiger, sporting a reversed Bayern baseball cap, and then Thomas Müller. All three were home-grown. Sound footballing principles underpin this European superpower.

Bayern may be a corporate monster, and club sponsors were prominent at Saturday’s midnight banquet at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane.

Their ambition may be rampant, also embodied in their snipping and nicking one of the Wembley nets. Their lust for supremacy was seen in the eyes of two of Bayern’s power brokers, Uli Hoeness and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, as they shook hands with Robert Lewandowski, the widely-coveted Borussia Dortmund forward, at Wembley.

Their coach, Jupp Heynckes, indicated that Lewandowski would soon follow Mario Götze into a dalliance with the Allianz. At the celebration party, as Müller and Mario Gomez played the bongo, Heynckes swayed on the dance floor.

Bayern executives like Rummenigge stood nearby, smiling away. This is the board that had cold-bloodedly decided Bayern did not need Heynckes any more, bringing in Pep Guardiola. Heynckes is certainly bowing out in style with silverware everywhere.

Yet the image of Lahm, Schweinsteiger and Müller bringing the cup “home” was powerful. Bayern do many things right. They may be cocky and egotistical, depicted as FC Hollywood, but they are a fabulous, well-run football club with a passionate fan-base and with the right approach to playing the game and developing talent.

Such a conscientious, intelligent individual as Guardiola would not have chosen to work for a club that had no soul. There is a hunger to Bayern, a desire to recover from the setbacks of 2010 and 2012. One of the most captivating finals of recent years ultimately proved a celebration of individual and collective resilience in Arjen Robben and Bayern respectively. They earned the right to take the trophy “home”.

Yet the reaction in many quarters to Bayern’s vanquishing of Dortmund has been one of slight dismay, the wealthy favourites overwhelming the popular, characterful underdogs. Bayern won the trophy in London. Dortmund won many hearts in London. This merry black-and-yellow swarm was the toast of London on Saturday, wandering around with their life-size cardboard cut-outs of Lewandowski, Mats Hummels and Jürgen Klopp.

Dortmund hired vans that toured Westminster and Wembley covered with slogans for their English hosts, saying “thanks a million for inventing the game we love”.

Countless stickers read “from Dortmund with love” and “Real love: BVB”. No wonder they all congregated around Eros.

Piccadilly Square’s tube sign was obscured by a Dortmund flag. Trafalgar Square’s lions wore black and yellow for the day. A passing Liverpool fan was serenaded with You’ll Never Walk Alone. Dortmund fans swapped tweets with the hashtag #fairytale. It was. Their recovery and rise, their vivacious football under the magnetic Klopp, has been a fairy-tale.

Football needs fairy-tales like Dortmund’s but it also needs the truth, and the truth on Saturday was that Bayern deserved to fly home with the Champions League.

Heynckes’ home-grown players were not necessarily at their technical best, but the work-rate of Lahm, Schweinsteiger and Müller set the tone, initially of defiance in the teeth of the early Dortmund squall and then pushing for victory.

A reminder of Bayern’s astonishing power came 10 minutes before kick-off. The eyes and ears of the neutral had been fixated with the raucous choirs from Westphalia. Then the great swathes of Bayern’s support stormed through Stern des Südens, their anthem that eulogises the importance of fighting hard through the bad times as well basking in the good.

Wembley had the Yellow Wall at one end and the Wall of Sound down the other. Dortmund fans knew they were not just playing 11 men. They were taking on a famous institution, a way of life, a force-field in red motivated by the search for redemption after losing out in finals in Madrid and Munich.

For a few seconds, the Dortmund supporters fell quiet and then backed their team with a rare passion, helping give Wembley an unforgettable atmosphere. Klopp’s players responded marvellously, pressing hard in midfield and attacking with gusto.

When Bayern fans reflect in years to come on this cathartic victory, they will raise glasses to Manuel Neuer’s supreme efforts early on, the keeper denying Lewandowski, Jakub Blaszczykowski, Marco Reus and Sven Bender. Neuer had a strong case to rival Robben as man of the match. To think that Bayern ultras issued Neuer with a code of conduct when he joined from arch-rivals Schalke.

The tide then flowed Bayern’s way. Now it was Roman Weidenfeller demonstrating the fine art of goalkeeping, thwarting Mario Mandzukic and Robben twice before the pair combined and the Croatian pounced to score on the hour.

The tide turned again. Within seven minutes, Bayern lost their lead and should have lost a player. Dante had already been cautioned for a foul on Reus (after the half-hour) and then went in with a knee to the player’s chest.

The punishment was clear, a penalty (effortlessly despatched by Ilkay Gundogan) and a minimum yellow card, arguably red. Dante should have been sent off.

For such a good referee, Nicola Rizzoli made a colossal error of judgment. He ignored the laws. He let down his peers. Uefa’s refereeing guru, Pierluigi Collina, should seek an explanation from his compatriot but he won’t.

Bayern should have been down to 10. Their mindset might have become more cautious, probably with an attacker sacrificed to allow the introduction of a centre-half in Daniel van Buyten (or Javi Martínez dropped back).

One shudders to imagine the splenetic convulsions from an English side should such an injustice have befallen them. A Euro, too, for the thoughts of Sir Alex Ferguson, who saw Nani sent off for a lesser offence in the Champions League quarter-finals.

Rizzoli could also have dismissed Franck Ribéry for a brief skirmish with Kevin Grosskreutz. Dortmund were remarkably sanguine about the referee’s failures, perhaps recalling sheepishly Lewandowski’s stamp on Jerome Boateng, and should really focus on their own shortcomings in the final 15 minutes.

They waned, a contrast to the waxing Bayern. A medal should really be presented to Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt for his medical expertise in helping Bayern’s players reach such peak condition for such an occasion.

They were also fresher after playing fewer games, a tribute to their squad strength.

Bayern were far more ambitious as well as sleeker. Ribéry back-heeled to Robben, who dribbled his way through Dortmund’s defence and into Bayern folklore. The cup was coming “home” and rightly so.